I am originally from the States but moved to Australia.

Before I moved away I lived in a bible belt state that was one of the 18 US states that have a “tipped minimum wage” of $2.13 an hour. In those states if you have a job that earns tips you get paid $2.13 an hour, and your employer is supposed to match that wage to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

However you can imagine if you are one of the lucky ones who has a job in the only restaurant in town, that asking your boss for those missing wages after a slow night is not going to get you anything but fired. There are dozens of other desperate people willing to take your place in a heartbeat.

I find a lot of people aren’t aware of the situation for large swathes of the US. The amount of people who are homeless or hungry or sick with no help is astronomical for a “first world country”.

What I find interesting is that after a cursory google search it would appear that China indeed has minimum wages, and those are interestingly not far off that $2.13 an hour.

https://www.china-briefing.com/news/minimum-wages-china/

The lowest hourly minimum wage in a province I could find was 16.5 RMB which works out to $2.30 an hour.

Now there are of course nuances here, like those jobs in China not being tipped, the cost of living, healthcare, etc.

I do think that things in the States are becoming more dire than most realise, and things in China have been steadily getting better.

In any case I feel very privileged to live in Australia and raise my children here.

Because we are the product…

Oh yeah, they can get around it, but not without me knowing about it. If I find out, they lose the devices, simple as that.

You are right that parents who aren’t technical will have a hard time, but it’s not insurmountable. No devices in the bedrooms, ever. No downloading apps without permission ever. Google the app and give a yes or no.

When it came to it, wifi off at night and she got the basic Nokia phone. It’s a constant battle, sure but one we must win.

Also reminded her that no matter what, if she’s on our network, I will know what she’s up to. Instilling a healthy sense of fear is good. Router logs do not lie.

I highly recommend Qustudio. It works on phone and PC, and allows you to customise exactly what is monitored or blocked so you can keep an eye on things in an age appropriate way.

We started monitoring after we found out our 12 year old daughter was catfishing a 19 year old boy. He had no idea and after we explained that she could literally ruin his life, and made her tell him her age he noped out of there. (Wisely.)

At first we had it set to monitor everything, report all searches, all app downloads, block porn, etc.

Yes she was able to get around certain features, like when she was young we had the phone locked past midnight… But it logs when it’s in use, so we then had a talk the next day and took away the phone or PC if needed.

As she got older we removed the block on all websites, and stopped monitoring any messages. We kept the software on to let us know when she was using her devices because she would often be up until 3am on her phone on a school night and we would then have a conversation about it.

We removed it when she was 17 or 18.

I am a disability support worker, and can absolutely attest that depending on the injury level and their age/muscle tone, something as dumb as pushing them sideways a bit can dump them on the floor.

Hell, the young ones do it to each other to be jerks lol. I’ve joined a stadium full of people teasing one of my clients for not wearing his seatbelt because he fell out of his chair with an epic splat after being bumped.

Perhaps it was partially arrested and the lines snapped, leaving it too slow to get airborne?

Oh really? I do like him, thank you I will go have a listen!

I used to have a demonoid account too! Back then I could just torrent anything without a care…

Now I would need a VPN and a ton of reading to even begin. Sad times.

I unfortunately am a victim of this. My Sense was great. Then a forced update pushed despite never allowing the Fitbit app to update. Now the battery life is horrible and I am of course encouraged to buy a new one and move my Fitbit information to Google.

Beautiful.

For anyone in a state without fluoridated water, you can get fluoride drops to put in your/your children’s water.

Want to see what happens when you do this?

https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/children-youth/childrens-headline-indicators/contents/indicator-7

Notice the two states with the highest rates of dental decay are Queensland and Northern Territory?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_in_Australia

Yeah, those states didn’t get flouride in their water until around 2012.

Such a coincidence…

It’s also completely silly because many places have naturally fluoridated water!

The media would have you believe that no one is fighting back, this is because if you feel alone you are less likely to fight back.

The title of the article implies that it’s just silly that a traffic officer was confronted at his house by ICE, but what really matters in this article is the people following those ICE agents with megaphones.

They are doing what is right, while taking personal risk, and their bravery should be spread far and wide, so others will be emboldened to act.

There are always good people, there are always those who will fight, you are not alone.

My daughter. <3

This was in the side bar of that article.

What the fuck is this timeline?

^ This!

I learned the retinol lesson the hard way. I used to use retin-a daily, and wasn’t careful about getting it near my eyes because I wasn’t sensitive to it.

I now have chronic dry eye, this eventually got so bad I couldn’t see, and had to go get ipl treatments once a month, have the meibomian glands expressed, and have punctal plugs placed every month, then every few months. (don’t google any of that)

After it got “better” I only have to do this stuff every 6 months…

It’s expensive.

Stay safe kids, never put a retinol near your eyes.

This is interesting, I’m currently in Japan and noticed the Starbucks here are huge with many tables and chairs and they are packed with people sitting and reading, doing homework, etc. Many don’t have drinks or appear to hang out there all day.

Why has America made everything so hostile?

I filled it out as well, I hope to hear about the results!

She’s beautiful!

Yup. My husband and I were in the Novavax trial here in Australia, and the doctor at the trial said she was surprised more people weren’t interested, since its not an mRNA vaccine…